thumb|Engraved portrait of Thomas H. Watts

Thomas Hill Watts Sr. (January 3, 1819September 16, 1892) was an American lawyer, slaveowner, Confederate States Attorney General and the 18th governor of Alabama from 1863 to 1865, during the Civil War.

Early life

Watts was born at Pine Flat in the Alabama Territory on January 3, 1819, the oldest of twelve children born to John Hughes Watts and Catherine Prudence Hill, who had moved from Georgia to find the better lands of the frontier. He was of English and Welsh ancestry. Prepared for college at the Airy Mount Academy in Dallas County, Watts graduated with honors from the University of Virginia in 1840. The next year, he passed the bar examination and began practicing law in Greenville. In 1848 he moved his lucrative law practice to Montgomery. He also became a wealthy plantation owner, enslaving 179 people in 1860.

Political career

Elected to the Alabama State Legislature in the 1840s as a Whig, Watts also served in the Alabama State Senate in 1853. but resigned as its colonel in April 1862 when he was selected to become the attorney general in Confederate President Jefferson Davis' cabinet.

Watts served as attorney general for 18 months, often tasked with managing legal matters related to conscription and the order of precedence between local state organizations and Confederate military authority. He worked diligently, and gained a reputation as a competent and thoughtful chief legal officer. Watts defeated the incumbent Governor Shorter by a 3-1 margin, and took office on December 1, 1863. Facing a disgruntled populace that increasingly preferred peace and a return to the Union rather than more war, Watts embarked on a speaking tour of the state to make the case for continuing the war effort. tax-in-kind policies, and other efforts that further alienated the already-suffering civilian population and left some communities on the verge of starvation. In the face of discontent, Watts tried to position these unpopular measures as Confederate government policies rather than the actions of his administration. Desertion was a major drain on Alabama's manpower, with many men leaving the army without permission, defying conscription officers, and practicing armed resistance against the state government. As a result, Alabama did not have an effective home guard force either to fend off Union incursions or retake the rebellious regions of the state.

When the Confederate Congress passed a new conscription law drafting men age 17-50, Watts, who had previously supported conscription as Confederate attorney general, defied the national government and fought hard to maintain local manpower under his control. Drawing on these age groups would have taken away the men Watts was relying on to supply the state militia, and would further alienate those who resented being sent away to fight in a war they now considered hopeless. Governor Watts wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon, stating "Unless you order the commandant of conscripts to stop interfering with such companies there will be a conflict between the Confederate general and State authorities" and threatened to resist conscription by force of arms. Seddon backed down and allowed Watts to keep control of the Alabama militia forces, and the state supreme court affirmed Watts' authority to maintain the militia's exemption from conscription.

The military situation worsened as US Navy forces captured Mobile Bay in August 1864, and Union cavalry raided across the state destroying infrastructure. When the state capital of Montgomery was threatened, Watts evacuated the government to Eufaula before he was arrested by US soldiers at Union Springs, Alabama, on May 1, 1865.

Thomas Hill Watts died of a heart attack at age 73, on September 16, 1892, in Montgomery, Alabama.

References

Further reading

  • McMillan, Malcolm C. The Disintegration of a Confederate State, Three Governors and Alabama's Wartime Home Front, 1861–1865. Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1986.
  • Alabama Governors: Thomas Hill Watts

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